Why a Booktrail?
1921: If someone you loved went missing, would you ever stop searching for them?
The Photographer of the Lost
What you need to know before your trail
1921. The Great War is over and while many survivors have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. He has been declared ‘missing, believed killed’, but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph in the post, taken by Francis, hope flares. And so she begins to search.
Francis’s brother, Harry, is also searching. Hired by grieving families to photograph gravesites, he has returned to the Western Front. He too longs for Francis to be alive, so they can forgive each other for the last conversation they ever had.
And as Harry and Edie’s paths converge, they begin to get closer to a startling truth.
Travel Guide
Travel to France and Belgium after the war
Map from the book
The legacy of war is vividly and movingly explored here as the power and role of photography during the war is explored. Everyone deals with the war in their own way. Some feel guilty that they have returned safe, others feel worried that their family members haven’t returned. Everyone wishes for miracles however and to hope that they will get some sort of closure and inner peace.
The searches for the truth are carried out using the art of photography at its core. Harry in the book takes pictures of the graves of young men lost in the war. He gives them to the grieving families as keepsakes or some sort of closure. The last resting place of their loved one, thousands of miles away. They provide comfort and is heartbreakingly poignant.
Photographs during wartime give clues, lasting memories and hope. Their role in the war is explored lovingly and poignantly here.
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Photographer of the Lost
Destination/location: Belgium, France Author/guide: Caroline Scott Departure Time: 1921
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